Citizen complaint of the day: A Prius not fit for the road

A concerned citizen files a 311 complaint about this possibly city-owned Prius in the South End whose driver doesn't think he needs to look out the rear window - and who doesn't seem to care what will happen later today when it warms up and all that ice comes flying off the car. Bonus:

Driver also did not utilize any indicator/blinker when changing lanes and making turns.

"Every motor vehicle shall be equipped with at least one mirror so placed and adjusted as to afford the operator a clear, reflected view of the highway to the rear and left side of the vehicle". No windshield mounted rearview mirror necessary. But yes, if it were me I'd like to gauge how close the tailgater actually is before I lock them up.

I was driving to Vermont, and on the way through New Hampshire I passed a group of NH State Troopers who were pulling over everyone who hadn't shoveled the ~2 inches of snow that had fallen the previous night off their cars after. It was :chef-kiss: Add this to the list of laws that would make everyone's lives better if they were enforced, but that MA police can't be arsed to do.

You know when you have to lean into the ice scraper with your full weight to get ice off the windshield? What would you do if the roof was also like that?

In the past few days, I saw dozens of cars on the road with ice on the roof. That's how you can tell if someone has a garage -- *every* car parked outside in these conditions would have ice on the roof. When it's in the single digits, it doesn't fall off, even when you drive around with the heat on and park in the sun (plus it was cloudy for most of this week). Of course, you have to keep an eye on it when the weather changes, and push it off once it's starting to melt.

And paramedics is a bit of a dramatization. Yes, you should try to remove ice from your car before it flies off. But ice falls off vehicles, buildings, and trees all the time, and usually nobody is hurt.

Decades ago when I was a clueless 20-something, we had a storm similar to this one - snow, followed by rising temps, then a freeze. I had about two inches of glacier on my hood and did nothing about it. I drove off, got onto a highway, and after a few minutes driving 60+mph, a huge piece of ice flew off my hood and crashed onto the highway. Luckily, there were no cars close behind me. As clueless as I was, I realized the damage this ice chunk could have caused to someone behind me and have cleaned off potential ice chunks since.
Imagine someone throwing a brick thru your windshield - that's what this stuff is like.
Just bang on it with your fist to break it up.